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Once you decide to cross Culver and give a chance to the Irvine schools of Tustin Unified School District, the question is, West Irvine or Northpark? Both have very good schools. Both have a mix of condominiums and single family residences. Northpark is a guard gated community where as West Irvine isn’t. Whether or not anyone needs a guard and a gate when they live in the safest city of America is another debate, but a general opinion is that Northpark condos cost more than the others in area because of the ‘guard gate’. Is the tax of the guard gate true? Let’s compare two properties today, one in West Irvine and one in Northpark, and see if it’s true.

Condominium home owner’s dues are around $350 per month for both properties. They both fall under the property tax rate of 1.0595%. Price/ SF for the West Irvine condo is more than the Price/SF for the Northpark condo. Since our West Irvine condo’s monthly expenses are more than the Northpark condo’s monthly expenses, it’s clear that there is no guard gate tax, at least for these two properties.

Which one would you buy? Irvine has a lot of areas with exorbitant HOA dues. Would you buy a property with a HOA more than $300 per month? Or would you go for a property that hasn’t seen significant correction from the peak of 2005/2006 prices?